Will what looked like a profit-booking move end up as a corrective move? That’s the fear derivative traders are nursing now. Intraday charts and market breadth details show selling pressure at higher levels in both Nifty and mid-cap stocks.

If last month belonged to call option buyers, this month belongs to neither call option buyers nor those with long positions in put options. Straddle sellers are the lucky ones in the April series, as the Nifty has remained in a narrow range-bound mode this month.

Once again, the market remained in a no-news-is-good-news mode and gains at the index level were nothing to write home about. But the real strength of market was visible in the mid-cap and small-cap segments.

We probably had the least volatile budget speech event in recent memory on Wednesday, in the first half trading. As the finance minister read out the budget, the Nifty moved in an extreme short range of 45 points. But soon after he wrapped up, the Nifty moved up sharply.

It was another week where fortune favoured traders with long positions in call options from the January series. The only thing traders need to do now is to protect their profit by keeping a stop-loss on all short-term trades or positional trades on the long side.

After almost eight straight weeks, luck finally favoured traders with long positions in call options. The Nifty’s rise on Thursday created some discomfort, as traders could be seen rushing to cover short positions in out-of-the-money call options.

Options, both call and put, are probably the only instruments that price in the emotions of fear, greed and hope that rule the equity market at any given point. The rise in open in interests, or implied volatility, is the sum of the emotions prevailing on the Street.